Non Verbal Abuse

If you want to insult or criticize a friend, family member or co worker without having to confront them or account for yourself, then abusive body language is a skill you should learn.

Say you want to argue with a coworker but you don’t have the courage to confront him and risk being wrong or unpopular. You can easy dismiss whatever he says as incredibly stupid without saying a word. It’s quite simply done by casting your eyes heavenward and sighing. If you are male, you can lean back in your chair to emphasize your point. Nine times out of ten you will get away with it. The tenth time, your expression may be met with an impatient, “What?!?!” At that point, as a coward, you shrug innocently.

If you don’t feel like going to the trouble of counseling a subordinate, you can use such techniques to make that employee feel very uncomfortable. As this person talks you can use the eye roll and sigh, or better yet, you can look out the window and tune completely out. Just don’t listen. This expresses your desire that this employee doesn’t even exist. Since this method deals with wishful thinking rather than reality, it isn’t very effective. The employee will probably not take the hint and tender her resignation immediately. But at least you can avoid the difficult and embarrassing conversation with the employee about her performance that would probably end with her challenging your evaluation.

Let’s say two of your acquaintances are disagreeing. You want to be on one side of the argument without having to say so and then risk the bad opinion of the person with whom you disagree. It’s simple. As the one you agree with makes a point, you slowly grin a wolfish grin. Without saying a word you have said gotcha! If you are called on your rude behavior you can claim you remembered a joke.

Grinning while hearing of someone’s misfortunes is also a way to really put down one of your friends. Hey, wait a minute! What kind of sick person wants to put down one of their friends?

You might want to think about that.

If you are reading this, chances are you cannot identify with these behaviors. They are abusive and obnoxious. If this sort of body language has been directed at you, perhaps you wondered if you were overreacting. No. You were not.